


Till You Find Your Dream

by veretianblue (clptr)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Marlas did not happen, Minor Character Death, NO Jokaste, Theomedes lives, minor original female character - Freeform, the abuse concerns Nicaise not Laurent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-06 18:51:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clptr/pseuds/veretianblue
Summary: Auguste lives AU. Instead of meeting Laurent under the guise of a slave, Damen is forced to hide his identity and become Nicaise’s tutor. In the tenuous political situation, both are willing to do what it takes to ensure that the right person ends up on the throne.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> You would not be reading this if not for the incredibly constant and patient support of [eikyrona](http://eikyrona.tumblr.com/), the artist for this fic, and [adrien](https://lukesunburn.tumblr.com/), my eagle-eyed beta. Thank you so, so much!
> 
> Please check out **eikyrona** 's always gorgeous artwork in anticipation for the illustration in Chapter 9 and give **adrien** a round of applause for the great beta work!
> 
>   A huge THANK YOU to our amazing mods, who rose to the challenge and organized things in the cheeriest, speediest and most efficient manner possible!

**Prologue**

Reclined in their seats, with plentiful goblets of wine and platters of sweetmeats before them, the guests of the Kingdom of Acquitart now turned their attention to the raised platform at the end of the room, where a flourish of trumpets heralded the appearance of an announcer on stage.

Dressed in a combination of reds, the man stood out against the gold and green drapings around the platform.

“My lords and ladies!” the announcer cried. “I am honoured to introduce, in the presence of their royal highnesses the joint rulers of Acquitart, King Laurent and King Damianos, our all-new play, especially written for this remarkable occasion of the five-year celebration of their glorious rule! Our modest play aims to show the wondrous and exciting paths our glorious leaders tread before coming together in wedded bliss and peaceful reign!”

“Wedded bliss?” said one of the mentioned kings drily, barely moving his lips.

His husband turned his head slightly and smiled at him. “I rather like that.”

The announcer continued in the same booming voice, “Our humble play, Till You Find Your Dream, opens in the vicinity of Karthas, on the then border between Vere and Akielos - behold, as the young Akielon prince gazes upon the rolling green hills of Delfeur!”

As the herald retired to the side, a youth in a short chiton, with golden laurels in his dark hair, strode onto the stage to smile at the landscape depicted on painted wood props. “The hills are alive!” he declared.

Bringing high praise to the beauties of nature, he strolled up and down the stage until suddenly he stopped and addressed the audience in a shocked voice, “Oh no! I have lost sight of my faithful companions and seem to have wandered into enemy Veretian territory!”

He gazed around in seeming bafflement, then the sound of marching soldiers entering the stage drew his attention.

“I see Veretian soldiers headed this way! Alas, the great enmity between our peoples will not permit civil conversation! I shall therefore make my way towards yonder forested hill!”

He strode down diagonally towards the back of the stage, announcing his intent to make for the Patran border, while the bright green painted hills were replaced by darker green tall mountains.

“I see majestic peaks before me,” he announced. “Oh no! I have mistaken my way and am now deeper into Veretian territory!”

In the audience, one of the kings straightened abruptly in this chair and whispered to his companion, “I haven’t gotten lost since I was nine!”

On stage, the actor continued, “I have now in my sight a quaint village nestled amongst the foothills. I shall make my way there and inquire about the location!”

The stage now changed to depict the busy market of a village, complete with stalls and carts. The villagers welcomed him in a friendly manner, but the language of the area appeared to be a problem, causing the lost prince to resort to an increasingly louder voice: “WHERE… AM… I? WHERE… IS… THIS? THIS! WHERE?”

Very quiet snickering could be heard from the direction of an ornate chair directly in front of the stage.

In the play, the villagers started frowning and retreating, which made their visitor even more agitated. In his pacing, he knocked over a villager’s stall of produce.

“My prize fruit!” The villager wailed. “It was meant for the neighbouring prince!”

The other villagers took up his complaint, vociferating so vigorously that the Akielon prince was forced to leave the settlement.

Gazing upon the near mountains, he said, “I am far from home, without friends or allies, surrounded by enemies! What shall I do?” There was a moment of stillness as he beheld the audience. He resumed, “I must do whatever it takes to keep the evil Veretians from recognizing me! I shall wear the clothes of the people here and pretend I am a traveller from Patras! I know that if I persevere, I will succeed in finding my way home!”

From the first, kingly row there was a murmur of, “That last part… was remarkably close.”

As the actor strode out, the announcer took back his place on the stage.

“In the town of Valtin,” he explained, “our brave Akielon prince dons the garments of Alier and catches word of a position available in the household of the Prince of Acquitart. He sets forth towards the principality in his search for a new adventure!”

The gold and green curtains fell to mild applause from the audience, giving the actors the chance to change their decor for the next act of the play.

As conversations broke out around the hall, Laurent snickered quietly in his ornate chair. “It seems you remained quite indelibly in the memory of those poor innocent peasants - they still remember you as a clumsy brute, violently attacking their fruit.”

“You know that’s not quite exactly how it went.”

“Oh, don’t worry - I’d blame it on your penchant for adventure if I were you.”

Damen frowned. “I can’t say I see how this play - that you approved, don’t think I’ve forgotten - could be to our benefit.”

“Don’t you?” Laurent’s tone was almost arch. “You cut quite a dashing figure, singing about the beauties of nature, you know. But more to the point, it makes both of us seem so much more agreeable as rulers. Consider its impact once the actors start travelling the country: would a more faithful version of events achieve quite the same effect?”

“I suppose this would be more… palatable to the masses than the actual story.” Damen leaned back in his chair with a slight frown. “An excess of truth wouldn’t probably turn out to be to be to our advantage, after all.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hills are alive, but not with the sound of music...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the prologue!  
> Here's what happened six years earlier, which will take up the rest of the chapters.
> 
> Please note that there's a quite a change in the tone of the story here and mind the tags!  
> Also additional warning for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment of violence against animals.

**1.**

_ “The hills are alive with the sound of music _

_ With songs they have sung for a thousand years” _

 

_ Six years earlier... _

 

Heart pounding, Damen galloped over the hill. In the distance there was a forest - he could weave through it and lose the men chasing him.

It had started abruptly - one moment he was doing his duty as Crown Prince of Akielos, patrolling the Veretian border alongside his personal guard, the next a desperate villager came running from the north-east, desperately calling out for help.

“My village - over there - Veretian soldiers!” Out of breath, he doubled over, able only to throw one last pleading look towards Damen and his men.

There was only one possible response.

“Follow me, men! Weapons drawn and two lookouts, north and south!”

As soon as he had given the orders, Damen spurred his horse onward towards the village. He crested a rocky hill to see in the vale not Veretian soldiers, but a troop of men in leathers wearing a profusion of weapons. From what he could tell at a glance, the weapons were of different styles and provenances. Mercenaries, he thought. Something did not feel right. He half-turned his head to shout a command to his captain, Kleitos, and saw, instead, another troop of similarly armed men coming at him from the left. He was about to be cut off from his guard.

Raising his voice in a call to arms, he rode fast towards the second band of mercenaries, trying to make his way back. They came at him in furious gallop, throwing themselves in Damen’s path. In the few moments before they met, he noticed, having the higher ground, the back of the troop breaking off to attack his guard.

“To me, men of Akielos,” Damen shouted in between dispatching his attackers, “to me!”

“No men of Akielos will come to you, usurper prince! This land belongs to the rightful heir, Kastor!”

Damen nearly missed his strike. Rebels? Rebels, planning to set his brother on the throne?

The men kept coming, driving such thoughts to the back of his mind. He was vaguely conscious of felling men, but focussed more on the fact that enemies that did not seem to dwindle. “To me, men!” he shouted hoarsely, “to me!”

There was no answering call to be heard over the clanging of the swords, as Damen kept engaging the rebels in battle. Had they been killed? Taken prisoners? They were all hand-picked soldiers, good and clever fighters that had long trained with Damen. He doubled his efforts, focussing on making his way back towards his guard. His solitary position had him at a disadvantage, and he tried to compensate using speed; he drove his horse forward without warning and cut through the men in front of him.

He drew to a halt as soon as he caught sight of a red cape, vaguely aware of the rebels riding parallel to him in order to cut him off.

The red capes of his men littered the ground, outshone in brightness by their life’s blood. Men and horses alike were either already still or made to be so by rebels carrying daggers.

Kleitos, the captain of his guards, a man who had helped train Damen himself, was looking unseeing towards the sky, pinned to the ground by a broadsword through his chest.

Damen stared for a long heartbeat.

“Long live Kastor!” sounded behind him, against rapidly approaching horse hooves.

He turned to see the other band of men, the ones from the vale, riding down the hill towards him. On his other side, a line had already formed, blocking the way towards Karthas.

He looked around to realize that he had only seconds left before he would be surrounded by some two hundred heavily armed men. There was no chance he could defeat them all.  

He could, however, repeat his earlier manoeuvre.

He broke quickly to the right, trusting again to the power and speed of his horse, and rode out through the gap between the two troops in the only direction left available to him - north, across the Veretian border.

As the men followed in dogged pursuit, Damen sought the steepest hills to tire out their horses and, if possible, to lose them among the changes of terrain. He felt he had a chance to be rid of them by nightfall and then, taking the time to rest, to make his way back to Akielos, crossing the great river Phonissa.

But the border area was not wholly uninhabited and there were even garrison patrols, groups of twenty armed riders in the colours of Vere, occasionally visible in the distance. Forced to avoid these as well, Damen chose to follow the rockiest paths, regardless of direction.

The hot sun began to feel scorching on the back of his neck, but Damen did not dare stop for water; although his horse would also soon begin to feel thirst, his pursuers had not fallen behind quite as much as he had expected. In the middle of enemy territory, it was imperative to find shelter before anything else, so he spurred his horse on as fast as possible.

Towards evening, his horse was beginning to show signs of exhaustion, but the distance between Damen and the men - Kastor’s men? he wondered disbelievingly - had increased so that only their shapes were visible. The terrain had begun to change. To the east, there were more of the rolling green hills that Delpha was known for, while to the north, forest-covered steep hills were now in sight. Damen weighed the two possibilities - east towards Patras, through what was most likely an inhabited area, or north into an unknown space that would provide better cover?

He glanced back to see his pursuers no farther than before and made for the highest hill in front of him, a rocky crest that made his horse nearly stumble.

On the other side, he saw that he was not only closer to the forest, but also to a lake - a lake with a large village, perhaps town next to it. The eastern wind brought the sounds of bells to him.

With a final look at his surroundings, Damen drove his horse to the left, into the forest.

Fortunately, there was a brook; after allowing the horse to drink and doing the same himself, he headed north-east through forest so as to keep close to Patras.

He led his horse as quietly as he could, stopping to listen for followers from time to time until night fell and the lack of moonlight made it unsafe to continue through unknown woods. He chose a tall oak with a grassy patch nearby for the horse and made camp of a sort.

There was no question of lighting a fire or of sleep, not with his pursuers so close; instead Damen unsaddled his horse, giving him a much-needed rub down, and made use of part of the provisions that had been packed for the day.

He sat himself on the ground and leaned against the oak. He would rest as best he could while keeping lookout.

The horse settled down quickly, his resting breaths mingling with the reassuring sounds of nighttime birds and small animals going about their business.

There was nothing left to do now but rest and wait for daylight, yet Damen found the events of the day had left him tense in a way he had never before experienced. His guard, cut down to a man; his former trainer, dead in a skirmish against… against whom? Were those men mercenaries or rebels? How many more supported Kastor? And - the question made his breath heave and his neck muscles tighten - did they act with Kastor’s knowledge? It seemed impossible, for no matter what was sometimes whispered at the court in Ios, there was nothing in Kastor’s actions, in his behaviour towards Damen to suggest this.

Damen could not even imagine their father’s response to such betrayal, if betrayal it was. Sicyon, the northernmost province of Akielos, was also the most difficult to control; skirmishes with the Veretians happened often enough that people lacked stability and that, naturally, made them fractious. Perhaps, in their disgruntlement, they had seen Kastor as a leader who could provide them the stability the actual king did not.

He exhaled. He needed to make this rebellion known to his father and help contain it. Most likely, his brother would help, which would be the most efficient solution. To do this, he needed to get back to Akielos, which at this point meant a detour through their ally, Patras. Doubling back through patrolled Veretian land, with the addition with rebels trying to get him, had a rather low probability of success.

He spent the rest of the night forcing his body to rest and planning routes and messages to his father.

As soon as the song of the lark anticipated dawn, Damen got himself up from the ground and stretched his muscles. He re-saddled his horse and started leading it in the direction of lightening dark.

He had not travelled far, nor had the sun climbed high into the sky yet when he heard another stream - and carried upwards by the wind, Akielon voices.

“Let’s go upstream,” a man said gruffly. “The others will have covered the south path.”

Damen halted, his senses now on alert. His way was blocked not only to the east, downstream, but also to the south, whence he had travelled. He had his sword and his horse - but here, off the beaten path, the horse was more of a hindrance.

Damen did not hesitate. Actions needed to be taken quickly if they were to succeed.

He took the water flask and what was left of the provisions off the horse and, regretfully, sent him racing downhill, parallel to the stream. The men would follow the sound of hooves, giving him time to head in a less likely direction - north-west.

The forest covered more than one hill, but Damen was determined to lose the disadvantageous position of being pursued. He made use of rocky areas and streams when he encountered them, so as not to leave tracks, and by the time evening was gathering again, he felt certain he had lost the men chasing him. Another sleepless night in the forest was followed by a sunny morning made even brighter by the trees becoming sparser and sparser.

On this other side of the forest, the terrain was rougher, no longer gentle slopes that promised rich harvest, but steeper hills that spoke of wilderness. Damen glanced down at his leather plate and Akielon sandals. It occurred to him that a change in appearance might be fitting for this foreign land and, with this thought in mind, he made his way towards a safe-looking hamlet in the distance.

 


End file.
